


Time After Time

by fiveyaaas



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: (i guess except for the handler but she’s irrelevant), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dancing, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fake Marriage, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Pining, Semi-Public Sex, Slow Dancing, Smut, Suicidal Thoughts, The Commission ships fiveya, Tragically Pining Idiots, “you mean to tell me that five is not married to vanya?”, “you mean to tell me that they’re not in love?”, ”oh they’re in love”, ”we’re just not allowed to say it”
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:01:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27359206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveyaaas/pseuds/fiveyaaas
Summary: Five and Vanya pretend to be married (for completely legitimate reasons) while fighting off the Commission. Vanya dresses in a variety of period-appropriate clothing, Five mancries on a balcony, and, by the end, everyone in the Commission is more perplexed by their relationship status than the fact that they’d successfully staged a coup.[Written for Fiveya Week, Day 2: Dance/Train]
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy/Vanya Hargreeves
Comments: 25
Kudos: 105
Collections: fiveya week (round 2)





	1. Once In a Lifetime

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pacoca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pacoca/gifts).



> Hello!!! I have been so excited to share this story pretty much since I thought of it. I’d put off writing this for a bit once I’d heard the prompts for fiveya week, but I have always loved reading fake dating/ fake married AUs and I’m ecstatic to have now (almost completely) written one. 
> 
> This will be separated into seven parts, and there will be dancing and training in every chapter. There will also be a mountainful of mutual pining, angst, fluff, and (eventually) smut. I’m really excited to see your guys’ reaction to this!!! 
> 
> This is dedicated to pacoca, who is THE person to go to for encouragement with writing. I love her so much, and she’s such a wonderful friend. Here’s to another year of discussing lizards, angsty worms on strings, and cursed glowsticks!!!!!

**”And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife**   
**And you may ask yourself, "Well... how did I get here?" -Talking Heads**

_ The Present _

There are fourteen corpses surrounding them. Vanya glances up at Five, busy cleaning off his wedding ring with the jacket of one of said corpses. He raises his brows, asking her silently to continue. 

“I think this got out of hand,” she says, nearly tripping over the disembodied arm at her feet. 

* * *

_ Thirty-Six Weeks Before _

It’s as he pulls his hair that he realizes he’s starting to go gray again, frowning at the strand and flicking it away impatiently. 

“I don’t quite understand why marrying Vanya will do anything to help,” Allison announces, making him pause in his pacing. 

“Obviously, Vanya and I are not  _ actually  _ getting married. It is simply a strategy.”

“Yeah, but a really  _ awful  _ strategy,” Ben shouts from the other room, reaching out with his now-corporeal hand to spike what appears to be a cup of apple juice with Fireball. 

“I don’t think it’s a bad strategy,” Vanya defends him, likely just trying to stay loyal, which he appreciates greatly. He sets his hand out like,  _ ‘see, Vanya agrees with me.’  _

“It was my plan,” Luther pipes up, which Five is thankful for, knowing Allison may be more willing to listen with this knowledge. “And this is the first time Five has ever agreed to  _ any  _ of my plans, which I would say is a great sign.”

Diego snatches the Fireball from Ben and starts chugging. 

“You’re tearing this family apart, Five,” Klaus says, sounding distracted as he was trying to balance a spoon on his nose and failing. 

“What are you even doing?”

“Ben told me if I could hold the spoon up for the duration of this conversation he would give me twenty bucks.”

“I don’t see why Five and I can’t get married,” Vanya tells them, bringing the attention back to the matter at hand. “There’s technically nothing that says we were ever even adopted anymore, not that we know there was before, mind you. We could go down to Vegas right now and get married. Plus, it’s necessary for the mission, right?”

Ben turns his irritation onto her. “We all know why this is happening, and it has  _ nothing  _ to do with a mission and  _ everything  _ to do with all of us needing therapy.”

Vanya glares at him, and Five starts to argue in her defense when Diego asks, “How long will you two be gone?”

Five shrugs. “Given the nature of our mission, we could technically come back seconds after we’re done. However, I was thinking we could come back on an agreed upon date and time within this month. That way everyone will know if we have been compromised.”

_ “Compromised?”  _ Every one of them asks the same question simultaneously, but the word is said in a variety of different tones. 

To reassure Vanya, he explains, “We’ll be fine, I just need to make sure we have a back-up plan.” 

Klaus drops the spoon. “I think therapists would cause much less strain on us than you two killing an entire organization of time-traveling assassins for what… relationship issues?”

“It’s not rel-“ 

As Vanya moves to defend him, he cuts her off, “There is no possible way I can go back to our original timeline without this. Like it or not, Vanya is our most valuable and powerful asset, and she needs to go with me. If she is my wife, nobody would question it.”

Ben snorts, drinking all of the apple juice-Fireball monstrosity down before snarking, “Right, because when someone becomes an assassin, the first thing they do is make sure their wife gets to come along for the ride.”

Five scowls at him, but Luther answers for him, “No, you don’t understand. That’s  _ why  _ it’s perfect! They’ll suspect Vanya is there to destroy them, and they’ll be so focused on her that they won’t notice when we start stealing briefcases and whatnot.”

“Exactly, it’s a perfect plan!” When Five and Vanya say this simultaneously, it’s with the exact same tone. 

Ben sighs, leaning on Diego and Klaus. “Fine. Go kill over a thousand people because you have commitment issues. Be my guest. You know what? Why don’t you kill ten thousand? A hundred thousand!”

“Ben, being a drama queen isn’t going to get us to not do this mission.”

Ben sneers at him, “We all got together after you traveled  _ dimensions  _ to get back to me, meaning your jumping already could get us back to the original timeline, so  _ clearly  _ this has nothing to do with-“

“If we don’t go soon, it could make it even worse,” Vanya blurts, which isn’t exactly true, but, again, he appreciates her loyalty. 

“Vanya is right,” Five tells them. “She and I will be leaving promptly, and I expect you guys to be prepared with your end of the mission on the other side, okay? Luther has the briefcase and all the information necessary on how to use it. I expect you all to follow his orders. Got it?”

They all agree, clearly seeing no point in arguing any further with them.

Five grabs Vanya’s hand, blinking her away to get married.

* * *

_ Thirty-Five Weeks Before _

“I have a question,” Vanya says after Five closes the door behind Dot. The Commission had agreed to let them have their own dorm room after Five had clearly laid out his contract. Technically, with every assignment he had, she was allowed to come along, and she fully intended to. As much power as she had, it could go away with just a few pills, so she would stay beside Five the entire time they were there. 

“Yeah?” Five shrugs off his jacket, tossing it onto the bed beside his newly sanctioned briefcase. She stretches her legs out, wanting to lean against the pillows and go to sleep. It’d been a long day.

“Would we run into anyone you worked with… before? While we’re here?” 

He shakes his head, “Not who you’re referring to. Because the Commission exists sort of in its own timeline completely and the Handler left it when she died, she’s incapable of coming back. Well, I suppose if somebody were  _ really  _ motivated to get her back, she could come back, but I’d just kill her the second we saw her. So, we’re good there.”

Vanya hides her smile as she rifles through her bag, searching for a toothbrush and her pajamas. Five notices anyways, “I don’t care that you’re happy she’s dead. I’m happy she’s dead too, V.”

Vanya glances up at him, “Yeah?”

He nods, smiling ruefully and sitting down on their bed. “She did a lot of awful things, V. Especially to us and our family. I’m not going to feel bad about her dying when she made all of us suffer so much, and you shouldn’t either.”

“I don’t know if I told you before,” Vanya says, crawling over to him so that she could rest her head on his shoulder. “I really missed you, you know.”

“I know,” he sets his chin on her head, pulling her into something closely resembling a hug. “I missed you too, V. Everything has been so… hectic, with getting Ben back and trying to figure out a way to get Allison back to Claire too… Plus, all of the time spent with everything else. I missed you so much, and I’m so glad to have my  _ sole confidante  _ back.”

Vanya felt a blush spread across her face, knowing that he was seeing her pinkened cheeks but politely choosing to say nothing about it. “I didn’t realize you read my book all the way through.”

“Of course I did.” His tone took on a teasing quality, “Reading was the only thing I got to do for fun for decades, and the world ended before  _ A Song of Ice and Fire  _ did. Your book had no dragons and considerably less incest, but it was nice.”

She starts to pull away, and he sighs. “We’ve never really talked about that, have we?”

Vanya doesn’t want to be cuddled up to him when they have that conversation, but Five pulls her back to his chest. “That conversation is long overdue. Before we say anything else, I want to say I’m sorry.”

Vanya glances up at him in confusion,  _ “You’re  _ sorry?”

He sighs. “I know I don’t say it often enough, you don’t have to remind me. It’s just… I saw killing you as the  _ only  _ possible option, and-“

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Vanya interrupts him. “You don’t have to apologize for that, Five. I should be the one apologizing… you suffered so much at my hands, and I just… cannot believe you would apologize to  _ me.” _

“If I hadn’t ever left you either time,” Five starts but Vanya shakes her head. 

“You did what you thought was necessary.” She sets her hands on his shoulders, feeling her heart start to pound as she remembers the very brief kiss they had shared on their wedding day. It was for their cover, and she doesn’t understand why she’s even thinking about it. “I don’t blame you for it, Five. Not at all. There’s no need to apologize. At least you have no need to apologize, but I’m sorry. I’m so sorry that you went through that.”

She realizes that she had been looking at his lips as they start to move and she glances back up at him, listening to him speak. “Please don’t apologize to me. I forgave you a very long time ago. At Icarus when you… when you were about to drain my life away, I forgave you. I was looking at you and thinking about how this never would have happened if I had just…  _ stayed.  _ All I had to do was stay with you, and I could have avoided all of that.”

“Can we just agree to forgive each other in that case?” She tucks her face into his chest, knowing her voice is small and muffled to his ears. 

He now wraps her fully in his arms, and they’re truly hugging for the first time since they were kids. There had been very brief embraces before then, but she had always been able to excuse them before as something else. She realizes that one thing she has been missing this entire time was her best friend, and she smiles as he asks, “Haven’t we already forgiven each other, V?”

* * *

_ Thirty-Four Weeks Before _

The first assignment takes them to the late 1970’s, surrounded by people popping pills publicly and shooting heroin in the darker corners of Studio 54. 

“It’s so weird to be here,” Vanya tells him over the Donna Summer song playing. He’d grimaced when he’d first gotten the assignment, never fond of the disco movement aside from the instances of relief he’d gotten from people taking all kinds of substances freely and without regard at all for their health. The first time he’d ever tried anything, he’d hoped that it _ would  _ hurt him. “Knowing what will happen in a few years here. Did you ever get over that? Knowing the future when everyone else around you had no idea at all?”

He shakes his head, pulling her closer as he notices someone passing around Quaaludes. “Keep by my side, okay?”

She nods, tucking underneath his arm and searching around. “Do you know where your mark is?”

“He should be tucked away in one of the corners.”

She grabs his arm, and he glances down, “What’s wrong?”

“You’re certain you want to do this?”

He shrugs, feigning nonchalance but feeling his stomach sinking at the prospect of her being uncomfortable with this. “I don’t really feel one way or the other. Do you not want me to?”

“Well, he’ll die either way, won’t he?”

“Undoubtedly.”

“You’re not going to get upset later?”

“I know how to compartmentalize. The Commission needs to be stopped, and I think it’s necessary for them to not question my loyalty yet. If the Handler were still there, I know they would be questioning it. I’m banking on the fact that Dot and Herb are running it now, making them think that their change in leadership made me have a change of heart.”

She shoots him a concerned glance, “Do you really think that they’re as bad as her?”

He moves her away from a couple that appears to be seconds away from fucking right in front of everyone. He’d been on an assignment shortly after joining the Commision that ended with him teleporting here, fascinated by people living in excess when he’d lived with practically nothing. The copious amounts of drugs there and general air of hedonism had been nice too after strangling a father of four in his sleep. 

“I think,” Five says, remembering the way his wife had woken up and started begging him to stop. “The fact that they think the Commission should be around at all is reason enough not to ever trust them.” 

She glances over at all of the people dancing, “Are we supposed to blend in at all?”

“Are you asking me if I want to  _ dance?” _

“It can’t be that awful.”

“I will  _ never  _ dance to disco.”

She giggles, “If I had known that when I married you, it would have changed some things.”

Anita Ward’s ‘Ring My Bell’ starts playing and Five’s brows shoot up, feeling a grin reach his features as he asks, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but when Reginald had us learn ballroom dancing, I don’t think he played songs about orgasms.”

She frowns at the music, “Is that what this song is about?”

“If it’s not, it has become significantly more boring to me.”

She rolls her eyes fondly, pressing closer to him and gesturing to the crowd of drugged out people surrounding them, “I don’t think anybody would notice if we were to dance in a way unbefitting of the song.”

“Well, in that case,” he says, positioning them as they’d been instructed by Grace many years before, right around the time the Academy had been introduced to the public and Reginald had wanted to ensure they wouldn’t make a fool of themselves at extravagant parties. As his arms snake around her waist and she sets her hand on his shoulder, he whispers, knowing that she would still hear it over the music with her powers, “I guess I have to. Don’t want my  _ wife _ thinking she married me in vain.”

At the sound of her laughter, he decides disco is not  _ entirely  _ as awful as he had first thought. 

He feels a spark of irritation as he spots his mark, right as the song fades away. Holding Vanya in his arms had been relieving, both for feeling like he could keep her safe there and for the steady thrum of her pounding heartbeat. He probably should have asked beforehand if she was scared of this, and, when he first heard her heart pounding in fear as their bodies moved closer together, he’d realized he hadn’t. 

She notices at the same time that his mark is there, and she pulls away, making him want to reach out and keep her beside him but knowing she’d be upset if he was to try. They aren’t  _ actually  _ married. Sure, they have a marriage license, but it’s just a ploy to stop the Commission. He shouldn’t be giving much thought to their banter or their touching; Vanya is just doing this to help him get them all back to the right dimension. She’s only acting this way because she wants to protect them all, and he needs to stop reaching for her when he’s supposed to be focusing on their safety too. 

He reaches for the gun in his pocket instead, shaking off the reluctance he feels.

* * *

_ Thirty-Three Weeks Before _

“Why are you practicing your aim?” 

Five turns around, lifting the earmuffs off his ears with one hand and lowering the hand gun with the other. “What did you say?”

“I asked why you’re practicing your aim,” Vanya repeats, touching his arm and glancing around. He’d been silent when he’d blinked her down to what appeared to be a shooting range, pulling out gear from the briefcase (she’d had many questions when she realized it actually could function as a briefcase a few days after arriving, which ended up in her hearing Five genuinely laugh for the first time since they’d gotten there.) 

Five shrugs at her question, “Nobody will bother us down here.” 

“Did you need to talk?”

He shakes his head, “No, I just wanted to be alone with you and not worry about anybody watching us. You need to talk?” 

“No.”

He smiles, putting the earmuffs back on. He’d put some on her too, but she could hear very easily through them anyways. Her powers had already come into use, and she’d spent every night before they slept explaining in Latin or Ancient Greek under her breath all the information she’d acquired over the day. They switched easily between the seven requisite languages they’d learned from the Academy over the past two weeks, and she had begrudgingly appreciated one thing Reginald had done when she realized how much it came in handy. 

Five speaks in German now, not needing to hide what he’s saying but likely just taking an opportunity to practice. He asks her if she’s ever learned how to properly use a gun, and when she raises her brows, he nudges the glock into her hands, moving behind her and explaining. 

While she had learned how to use them, at least very basically, she had never been talented at it, not ever having seen the point. Knowing now that she had powers, she found it even less important, but then she  _ had _ been worried since she’d gotten her memories back what would happen if somebody drugged her. Plus, it’s nice to have Five behind her and teaching her, it feels like when he used to help her with her math studies. She hadn’t ever really needed his help, and she was pretty certain he’d known. It’d been the few months before he left when she had always felt her heart pound when she’d spent time with him, but she’d always wanted to spend time with her best friend. After he had left, there was no point in examining those thoughts further, and, now that she finally has him back, she won’t either. Their friendship is important to her, and she doesn’t want to ruin it by saying she might have had a crush on him almost twenty years ago. 

“Can you show me how to use other types of guns?” Vanya asks, knowing that it was probably wholly unnecessary (as she had when she was twelve, asking him to help her with the distributive property, which he likely knew she understood before his help.)

He smiles, “Yeah, of course. I’ve been wanting to train you anyways, actually. We haven’t had time before, but… is that something you’re interested in?”

She nods. 

“Great, we’ll work on that between my assignments.”

She switches to Ancient Greek, asking if he thought any of the Commission suspected anything. He shakes his head, not perceptible enough where anyone would notice unless they were standing right next to them.

“Keep listening to them though,” he says, leaning to whisper it in her ear. She realizes someone might be watching, that he was trying to make it seem like he was speaking to his wife about an intimate matter. As she feels her ears heat up, she imagines she’s playing her part well, even if it  _ is _ involuntary. 

She stands on her tip-toes, kissing his cheek and replying in Russian, “I’ll make sure to tell you if I hear anything.”

When she moves back, he raises his brows. “What was that about?” 

She’s confused why he’s speaking in English if someone could hear them, staying in Russian as she speaks to him, “Don’t we have an audience?”

“No?”

“Why did you lean down to say that then?”

“Is that not allowed?”

She frowns at him.

“I’m sorry.” His voice sounds stressed as he hastily defends his actions, “I wasn’t around people for a very long time. I thought that was a normal thing to do, I’m sorry.”

“Oh, it wasn't abnormal or anything… it just felt… intimate?”

He blushes then. “Right, sorry. Noted.”

They’re silent for a few moments before Five asks, “So, uh, you didn’t fully get all your targets last time, do you want to go back to that?”

She nods, and they stop talking after that. 

Unfortunately, late that night, as Five is snoring next to her, cuddled up to her side, she can’t stifle down the feelings any longer. She remembers all the nights that he’d slept in her bed after the day she’d admitted to him the nightmares went away when he did, how he’d teleport to her room and tuck her into his arms and say he’d protect her. Five is still the best friend who had left her many years ago, and she knows that those feelings, ones which she’d never been able to properly examine, are coming back again.

* * *

_ Thirty-Two Weeks Before  _

“Did you sleep around when you were in the Commission?” Vanya asks him, making him spit out the coffee he’d been sipping on since he woke up. They’re set to train in an hour, working on hand-to-hand, and he’s trying to not look at her porcelain, creamy thighs peeking out of the oversized t-shirt she’d worn to bed. He could have insisted she wore pajama pants, but she’d said something about getting hot flashes from PMS earlier that week and he didn’t want her to be uncomfortable. When he’d realized she was wearing his shirt last night, he’d cleared his throat and excused himself before she could cuddle up to him, afraid that she would feel the erection poking her thigh, and he’d closed his eyes in guilt once he’d come into his hand, not wanting to leave their restroom but knowing she’d worry if he just didn’t come to bed. 

Realizing he hadn’t spoke in a few momens, he quesioned, “Why do you ask?” 

“Well, you looked super old, right?”

“Fifty eight is hardly that old-“

“Ooh, did you have a young, spry intern that wanted to move up in the company?”

“No.”

“Were  _ you  _ the young, spry intern that wanted to move up in the company?”

He didn’t answer, thinking back to the Handler and forcing down his revulsion. She seems to notice that she’s upset him, and she sheepishly apologizes. 

“It’s fine,” Five says quickly, feeling guilt as he remembered how much he had done to get home to his family. “It’s just… not something I would like to talk about.”

“Oh,” she blushes, picking at her nails. He realizes he’s effectively silenced her by sounding upset with her, and he wants to change the subject somehow so she’ll keep talking. If she still had her bangs, she’d undoubtedly be hiding behind them. Even when she has his undivided attention, she’s convinced he doesn’t want her around again. 

Five starts to say something, hoping to make the nausea at making her look so ashamed go away, but he’s interrupted by someone knocking on their door. Vanya jumps up at the opportunity to avoid him, which makes him unsettled, but what makes it worse is when she opens the door to someone he recognized from his Commission days. 

The woman in front of them had a different job from him, choosing to be one more for ‘finding information,’ which, at one point, he’d learned was semi-veiled code for ‘torturing people.’ Seeing her in front of Vanya makes him want to hide his wife (or, well, really his best friend) behind him, but he forces down the urge and instead asks, “Is there something you need?”

She grins, “Just needed to get an answer for something.”

Five steps in front of Vanya protectively, trying to be as subtle about it as possible. “And have you found it?”

“Oh, yes.”

She slinks away, and he realizes she’s probably sensed the bullshit he’d claimed about wanting to join back ‘to oversee that the Commission would not become what it was before.’

Vanya’s not looking at him, and he wonders if she  _ knows  _ what that woman does. If she really is upset by his background like she kept claiming not to be. 

“You knew her?” Her voice confirms that she is upset, and he winces.

Shame clouds his voice as he croaks, “Yes, I did.” 

She looks away, cheeks flaming and eyes cold. He wants to beg for her forgiveness, but he feels like she’s shutting him out and he doesn’t want to not respect her boundaries. She’d only agreed to this because she wanted to help their family, and, even though she had said she forgave him, he couldn’t believe it any longer. 

What if she thought that he had wanted to torture  _ her?  _ That she thought him nothing above the people surrounding them everyday, and she was swallowing down revulsion and fear when she slept beside him. He’d forced her into this arrangement, and she’d agreed because she didn’t want him to hurt her like she expected he would. 

Christ, she probably only said she forgave him out of  _ fear.  _

He couldn’t make her suffer like this. Even if she didn’t think of him as her best friend any longer, she was still his best friend. Five couldn’t make his best friend be forced to be near someone she feared so much. 

“Let’s not train today,” Five said, trying to make his voice as bland as possible despite the fact that his heart was racing. “You stay in here, and I’ll go search around for intel, okay?” 

Vanya glanced down, and he knew it was because she didn’t want to force him to see the relief that was certainly in her eyes. “Are you going to be gone all day?” 

Of course she wanted him gone. “Yes, I’ll go all day.”  _ If it will help you be a little more happy, I’d do anything,  _ he doesn’t add. 

“Will you be with her?”

She thinks he’s going to go torture someone. She thinks he’s one of the people in the Commission that would; she likely thinks he gets off on it. God, he was such an  _ idiot.  _ He’d forced her to go along with him, and she doesn’t even trust him not to hurt people. 

But he doesn’t want her to  _ not  _ think him a monster. Her thinking him a monster kept her from trusting him, and she  _ shouldn’t  _ trust him. Not when he had done everything he’d done. Taking this job again had made him remember it, constantly. Vanya should never trust him again. 

So, he tells her, trying to confirm that he was still the monster she thought he was and not the person she had been friends with years ago, “Yeah, I’ll be with her.”

* * *

_ Thirty-One Weeks Before  _

Once Five had done all except confirm he was sleeping around during this mission, Vanya had at first deflated. For a second, she’d felt herself sinking back into what she now realized to be a crush on Five, which was stupid of her, considering that A) he didn’t think of her that way and B) he was doing this mission  _ only  _ to get them all back to their timeline. As she had thought more and more, she was  _ grateful  _ to Five to confirm that he was sleeping with the pretentious, snooty, promiscuously dressed Commission worker. (Yes, she knew that all Commission workers tended to have a standard uniform that they wore and that the woman was wearing said uniform, but it was the  _ way  _ she was wearing it.) 

See, Five basically saying that he had an affair with the woman for the entire time he’d been in the Commission and actually would have wanted to marry  _ her  _ and it be a real thing and not a fake marriage for the purposes of saving his family was a  _ good  _ thing. He was freeing Vanya from harboring the stupid, childish crush on him that she’d kept from ever disclosing to him. Perhaps Five had known, and that’s why he’d implied to be having a torrid love affair with the Commission employee, to let Vanya down easy. 

Five had never introduced the woman by name, always clamming up whenever she came to them. He always walked in front of Vanya when she came into the room as if to hide her away, like he was ashamed that he had to pretend she was his wife. The woman probably already knew, was likely laughing about how disgusting it was with Five when they went off. 

“Did you want to train today?” Five asks her, glancing up from the equations he has been working on all afternoon. She thinks it has something to do with the assignment he’s about to go on, and she wonders if he’ll even bother taking her along. 

“Isn’t it kind of late?” 

He checks his watch with a frown tugging at his cheeks, “No?”

“Aren’t you busy?” 

His eyes flash with pain, and she feels bad for snapping at him. “Sorry, you just-“

“This is nothing,” he explains, gesturing to the wall behind him. “I have plenty of time to train you, and I wanted to see how you do with training your powers.” 

Vanya must be feeling worse than she thought, desperately seeking an opportunity to confide in him, admitting, “I haven’t actually  _ trained  _ with my powers since Leonard.”

Five’s eyes flash with something, but she doesn’t really know if it’s pain. “Do you not want to? I wouldn’t-“

“It’s fine,” she says too quickly, and she can practically see his face crumple. He looks miserable, and she knows it’s because he doesn’t actually want to be there with her. “You don’t have to train me today! I’ll just… try to work on a note to leave Luther. We’re supposed to leave one behind on the next mission, right?”

“I mean, yeah-“

“Excellent, I’ll do that!” Vanya interrupts him, mainly because she doesn’t want to hear the pity he’d hide as he tried to lie and say he wanted to spend time with her. He’d lied all week about saying he wanted to spend time with her, and she didn’t want him to feel guilty, not about this. 

“Okay, great… do you want me to, uh… go? While you’re working on that?”

She knows that’s what he wanted, so she says, trying to be the good friend he’d always been to her when they were younger and not the monster she sometimes wonders that he thinks of her as now, “Yeah, you should go.” 

Still, when he sprawls out next to her that night, she asks him softly to wrap her in his arms like when they were kids, and he does. He’ll always be her friend, she knows. Even if most of him despises her, he will pretend to care for her like he always had because he is loyal and kind to her. Maybe it’s just that he thinks she’s pathetic, is trying to let her down easily, and is attempting to make her not think of herself as much of a loser as she clearly does. Maybe it’s just that, but still, he tucks her into his arms and says he’ll protect her, and she is forced to wonder if her feelings had ever even gone away in the first place. 


	2. Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I’m posting the first three chapters for sure tonight. I’ll post as many more as I can until day three actually hits, but I’ve accepted defeat and accept that this thing will be another WIP. It WILL be done by the end of the month, though. 
> 
> Also... there are a simply gratuitous amount of references to Ty Beanie Babies. I apologize. 😔

**“Tonight you’re mine completely, you give your love so sweetly. Tonight the light of love is in your eyes, but will you still love me tomorrow?” -The Shirelles**

_ Thirty Weeks Before _

It is hard on most days, forcing himself not to think about the fact that she’d been with not one but  _ two  _ people in the duration of time since he’d come back to her. However, it was especially hard when he’d been forced to be in the same decade of both of her former lovers in the past week. Leonard, he knew, had likely been a result of the complete isolation she felt upon all of the family rejecting her ( _ including  _ him, which he still regularly obsesses over, thinking of how different it all might have turned out had she not felt like he didn’t  _ care  _ about her.) Sissy, however, he had been nearly certain at one point would be the reason he’d lose her forever, had lashed out multiple times and tried to excuse it as worrying about the end of the world (and, even though that had been a large part of it, he knew that he wouldn’t have lashed out at Allison the same way for spending time with Raymond, that he was very much the monster he was now nearly certain Vanya thought him to be.)

The mission that took them to their timeline itself had only taken about twenty minutes, but he’d done the job that quick for a reason- they had to get a message to Luther. When they’d set their status report in the greenhouse, per their agreement wih Luther, they’d immediately gone back to HQ for his next assignment. His eyes had nearly bugged out when he’d realized it’d take them to the sixties. They’d be in Canada but still.

“I wonder if she’s happy,” Vanya murmurs to him now, and he frowns, not having an answer to that but still wanting to reassure her somehow.

He decides to stay silent, letting her guide where the conversation went while he adjusts his sniper. The realization that the weight of the gun in his hand actually calms down his racing thoughts immediately causes a twinge of discomfort in his stomach.

“It would be selfish of me to expect her to have not moved on,” Vanya adds, and his eyebrows knit together. He wonders how one could platonically say, ‘Given the opportunity to be with you, I’d wait an entire lifetime, would break a timeline to have another one if it meant you fell asleep in my arms each night.’ Ultimately, he decides there is no possible way to do so, so he wordlessly lets her continue. “I want her to be happy, and I realize now that she never could be, not with me.”

Five searches for his target with the scope, asking, “What do you mean by that, V?”

“Oh, do you need me to be quiet while you do that? I can be-“

He releases the bullet, right between his mark’s eyes. It had been an assignment he absolutely had no qualms with, reading through the guy’s file and realizing he’d been something of a deplorable human being, preying on his victims around this time of night, actually. “I’m done anyways,” Five tells her, lowering the sniper and glancing back at her. “Talk to me, Vanya. I can’t guarantee that I’ll be able to help, but if it’s an issue revolving around time, I might can.”

“Did you ever meet anybody? When you time travelled?”

He shakes his head, “I only ever was consistently at the Commission. Plus, I hadn’t precisely been looking.” Yes, the reason he hadn’t been was in front of him, but he didn’t think it was right to say that. Five had always understood what Delores was; otherwise, he would have taken her with him when he left. Once he had the opportunity to go home to Vanya, that choice had been easy. When he’d left Vanya behind in her apartment though, he supposed going back to Delores made sense, considering how stressed he’d been and how she’d been a way to cope with it. “Sissy told you she didn’t want to ever time travel, right?”

Vanya nods, glancing down. 

“And you don’t want to live in the sixties, I’m assuming?” Despite his best efforts, he asks through gritted teeth. Christ, he’s an awful person. 

“I don’t.”

He  _ hates  _ how his shoulders are visibly less tense as she says it, hates that he even worried of her answer in the first place. “I mean, you alresdy know what I’m going to say, right?”

“Can you talk to me not as a time traveler, then? Can you talk to me as my…” she trails off, biting her lip for a second, looking uncomfortable. For some inexplicable reason, his heart sinks. She speaks again, and he imagines she’d only paused for a few moments at all, even though they’d felt like hours, “As my best friend?”

He assesses her, trying to decipher what she wants to hear. When she’d wanted advice or comfort when they were younger, she never wanted bullshit responses, only wanted his unfiltered, genuine thoughts. The thoughts he is having right now aren’t going to be comforting to her at all though. He decides that what he says next is somewhat of a compromise between what is realistic, what she needs to hear, what she wants to hear, and what he wants to actually say. “I think it’s likely not going to truly get better until you yourself have moved on.”

She lets out a forced sounding laugh. “Are you suggesting that I have rebound sex?”

He purses his lips, not liking the thought of her finding the first person willing to sleep with her at some bar at all. “I’d hardly say that’s moving on.”

“Are you going to judge me if I say that I really want to get drunk?”

Five laughs, knowing it also sounds forced. “No, I wouldn’t judge you for telling me anything. You want to go get drinks?”

“Please.”

He smiles, wrapping an arm around her waist. “I’m about to teleport,” he warns her, and she nods, moving closer. Seconds later, land just outside of a bar he’d spotted earlier that night. 

Five orders drinks for them, keeping an eye on her while she found them a place to sit. She’d dressed herself in one of the more androgynous styles of the time, brown and black checkered pants and suspenders over a long-sleeved white turtleneck sweater. When a man sitting alone sends her an approving glance, she glares in response, flicking her ponytail as she avoids meeting Five’s gaze, and he knows it’s because her eyes had flashed blue, for just a second. He takes the drinks as soon as they’ve been made, blinking over to her. 

“Aren’t you worried someone will catch you doing that?” Vanya asks.

“If anybody were sober enough in here to notice and started pestering me about it, I imagine I’d just grab you and take us away.”

“Plus, you don’t care if they  _ do  _ notice,” she realizes.

He smirks at her. “I don’t,” he confirms.

She sips at the Mai Tai, frowning. “These were around back then?”

“I don’t know if that’s the correct phrasing, given that we’re actually in the 1960s,” he muses. “But, yes, they were considered out-of-date when we were born.”

“Have you ever ordered something that hasn’t been invented yet and confused a bartender?”

“Oh, yes, many times. Keep in mind, I left at thirteen and knew shit all about most things, even outside of shit like that. Honestly, the apocalypse days were much better than the Commission days if only for the fact that learning how public transportation worked.”

She glances down, and he curses himself when he realizes that he’d inadvertently hurt her feelings with the comment. They drink quietly after that, his dread growing with each second that came after.

“What time is it?” she asks suddenly, and he glances out the window, knowing his watch would be having a panic attack right around now, always going haywire when he used a briefcase. He guesses aloud somewhere between midnight and two, based on the time of year they’d gone to and their current location. Five realizes he might be ranting when her eyes glaze over, something they sometimes did when they were pre-teens and he’d go on a tirade that she’d mostly tune out. When he was a kid, he’d get irritated and snap at her once he realized. Right now, though, he’s anxious that he may have frayed the somewhat easy conversation they’d managed tonight, might have brought them back to the unease of the weeks prior. 

“The guy you killed tonight,” Vanya says abruptly, making him twitch uncomfortably, thinking about how he’d already mostly blocked out killing another person hours ago. “He was a bad person, right?”

“Does it matter?” 

She raises her brows at him, and he sighs. “I wouldn’t exactly trust him around children.” She grimaces, realizing what he’s implying.

“Does he have a home?”

“Yeah?” He doesn’t know where she’s going with this, but he’s desperate for her conversation (or, well, really her attention), willing to talk about literally anything if it’s more than the near radio silence she’s given him in the past week. 

“How do you feel about breaking into it?”

He snorts, despite himself. “Deciding a life of crime is the one for you, V? You gonna become a villain on me?”

“You regularly break into houses.”

“You would to if you could teleport.”

“I can fly,” she points out.

“Is this going to devolve into a game of ‘ _ whose powers are cooler?’”  _ he snarks.

She grins, canines flashing. “No, because I’d win.”

He rolls his eyes fondly. “So, you were wanting to, what, break into that guy’s home?” he prompts.

“Yes.”

He laughs, surprised, into his drink. “Why would you want to do that?”

“Because I’m sad and this drink tastes like ass and need to something else I’ll regret in the morning instead.”

“Ah, yes, arson.”

She grabs his forearm, and he flicks a brow up, shaking with silent laughter. “Take me,” she insists. He assesses her for a few seconds, takes both of the drinks and downs them, and blinks over to where they’re sitting side by side. He wraps his arms around his torso, easily lifting her up and feeling the little ‘oof’ she mutters before they’re landing inside of the mark’s house. She finds a light switch, scanning the house with pursed lips. It looks innocuous, and he can see her perplexment at the concept of someone like that seeming entirely normal. In her searching, she finds a record player, and she searches through vinyls until she finds one, fumbling with it for only a second before music starts to play around them.

He recognizes the lyrics of The Shirelles “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” immediately as it was one of the vinyls in Luther’s collection. She grabs his hand, wedding ring flashing as she forces him to dance again. 

The lyrics are annoyingly on the nose, considering that it almost feels like their once-easy relationship tonight, but he twirls her around and forces himself not to think about it. She has a right to hate him after all he’s done, and he needs to be happy that she’s giving him tonight. 

Their chests press together, and he pretends that this is all real. That they’re just a happily married couple, dancing before they go to bed.

* * *

_Twenty-Nine Weeks Before_

She is not really sure that Five has days off, working as an assassin, but she refuses to let him go out today. He insists that he’s fine, but he’s running fever and can barely finish sentences at all without coughing. She also takes an unnecessary amount of satisfaction from the way a trained assassin runs away from her when her eyes start to glow, telling him to report that Five won’t be working that day. Having a reputation here was nice.

“You’re seriously making me,” he pauses for a coughing fit. “Not work today?”

“That is my right, as your wife.”

“But-“

Vanya glowers at him long enough that he decides it’s not worth arguing. Sighing loudly, he lays back down. 

“I’m getting you soup. And tea.”

“I hate tea,” he complains miserably. 

“Would you prefer water?”

He pouts, crossing his arms over his chest and nodding stiffly. Five had never been likable when he was sick, and it is refreshing almost to see that he hasn’t changed in fifty years on that. 

“Alright, lay down. If you’re not laying in bed when I get back, I  _ will  _ be pissed. And neither of us want that.”

He grumbles under his breath, but he agrees loudly enough that she is satisfied and goes off to find him food and medicine. When Dot interrupts her, trying to explain that the Commission doesn’t really  _ do  _ sick days, Vanya uses the sound of her voice to throw her against the wall. Smiling, she asks Herb, having witnessed all of this and is now openly gaping at her to procure what she needs. 

As her hands close around the care package, she skips back to Five, not explaining why she is so gleeful when he asks.

She curls against his side, tipping soup into his mouth. He stops complaining when she’s pressed against him, so she considers it a success and stays by his side.

Two days later, when he’s already healed, and she’s sick, he takes care of her in turn.

* * *

_ Twenty-Eight Weeks Before _

They start to grow comfortable around one another again, and Five cannot bring himself to push her away. 

So, training starts back up, full-force. 

When she is getting consistently near-perfect at shooting, he moves onto knives. She likes them better, which amuses him immensely because she tells him this, standing proudly in her exactly five feet, waving a knife around as she talks animatedly enough for hand gestures. He’s met bunnies more imposing than her, and he finds it almost endearing that something this adorable has the ability to end the world.

As they work between his missions, she’s starting to get more and more tired after they train. The time travel is affecting her physically, he thinks, and he would have told her a while ago that she needed to stay back, except that she  _ wants  _ to go with him, clinging onto his arm each time he grabs the briefcase. It’s an impossibility for him to just ignore her, so he just keeps her tucked under his arm until he finds his mark each mission. 

When they get home, he doesn’t argue when she falls asleep on their bed the second she lays down. If he’s not tired out himself, he’ll tuck her in and kiss her cheek. They’d gotten into this habit, oddly, of kissing one another’s cheeks in public. It was an innocuous gesture, but it solidified the marriage facade. Sometimes he forgets that nobody pays attention to them when he’s working or when they’re just in the room together alone, and he kisses her cheek then too. She doesn’t mind it, returning the favor regularly and blushing whenever he kisses her.

She also really likes to cuddle up to him, even when they aren’t under the guise of a married couple. He just figures it’s reassuring for her to physically touch him, and she deserves any comfort he can give her. He never argues when she snuggles up to his side, and when she seems particularly exhausted some nights, he spoons against her, knowing that she particularly enjoyed it and saving it so that it’s more special when it happens.

If Five were a complete idiot, he would say that they acted nearly exactly like an actually married couple. The thought hits him when she’s wearing just a pair of underwear and his shirt, drinking coffee in his lap (it’s a joking thing, something she’d done a few times when she heard somebody approaching,saying that people wouldn’t bother them this way and just growing into the habit of doing so.) 

They’re comfortable and domestic and have finally found a system to where neither of them hogs the covers.

And he has to remind himself, regularly, that none of this is real.

Maybe he is a complete idiot.

“It’s weird,” Vanya tells him in German one day while she practices her form with knife throwing. He adjusts her stance, moving behind her, waiting for her silently to continue. “I know this isn’t real, but this is the longest relationship I’ve ever had, I’ve realized.”

He forces a smile, not saying what he’s thinking. That the relationship he’d had for thirty years was a sham too, possibly moreso than this one. At least he didn’t have to create a voice for Vanya, a manner of speaking, a backstory. It hurts him, accepting how truly alone he really was. Sometimes, when he’s on missions and sees teenagers, sees how young thirteen really is, it hits him that he was just a little kid when his mind was irrevocably broken.

Five doesn’t blame Vanta, though. He blames himself, and he also blames Reginald. It’s easy to recognize now that he would have never run away if he didn’t have Reginald regularly abusing them, and the part he regrets most now is that he didn’t take the others along with him. Sometimes he wonders if there’d have been an apocalypse at all if he’d just grabbed Vanya’s hand and run out with her that day.

“Sorry, I know that’s stupid to say,” Vanya continues, slipping into Russian. “I just hadn’t ever realized how short all of my relationships had been. And this is going to sound callous, and I hope you don’t judge me for it but it makes the other ones seem insignificant almost.”

_ ‘It’s not callous,’  _ he wants to say.  _ ‘You’ve made forty five years seem insignificant because you weren’t a part of them.’ _

Remind himself that that can’t possibly say that platonically, he tells her instead, “It’s not a stupid thing to say. I get it, what you’re saying.”

“You do?”

“I do,” he confirms in English. Pulling her tightly to his chest and breathing into the shell of her ear, “Your legs need to be further apart for that.”

She adjusts her position, and he nods in approval, moving back to watch her sink the knife into the target.

* * *

_ Twenty-Seven Weeks Before _

When they land in the 90s, Vanya comments dryly, upon seeing an army of beanie babies in a giftstore window, “I wonder if we should tell people not to collect those and that they  _ won’t  _ be worth thousands of dollars in a few years.”

“Can you imagine if you created a rift in time through beanie babies?” Five asks, looking at the line of plushies. His voice took on a mocking yet dramatic quality, “This is how the world will end. Not with a bang, but with a beanie baby.” 

She laughs, eyeing the giraffe. Five groans, “You want a fucking beanie baby, don’t you?” 

She blushes, “I do. I really want a beanie baby.”

He rolls his eyes, but his voice is fond when he tells her, “Fine, we’ll get your beanie baby.”

They walk inside the store, looking at the calendar, proclaiming  _ November 1997.  _ “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” Vanya tells him, and he nods, understanding what she’s saying. 

As they reach the rows of beanie babies, she feels herself smiling widely. “Why beanie babies?” Five asks. 

“They were really popular when we were younger, and you know… stuffed animals didn’t really fit the theme of-“

“Abusing children in a doomsday cult?” Five finishes for her, and she nods weakly. “That makes sense. Let’s get a shit ton to stick it to the old man.” 

“Oh, how the mighty have fallen,” Vanya intones dramatically. “Reginald’s once most promising soldier- abusing Father’s wealth to buy Patti the Platypus.” 

“You know their names?”

“I memorized a few of them,” she says sheepishly. 

He smirks, trying to hide it and failing as he picks up Patti from the bundle, “I would hardly say I was ever his most promising, considering I was a little shit, but here’s to rebellion. I’m keeping him. He’s mine now.” 

“Do beanie babies have gender?”

“You know, I have no idea. What would even be the purpose of gendering beanie babies?”

“I don’t know. It  _ is  _ the nineties, though.” 

“Ah, yes, how could I forget. The War on Drugs and the gendering of plush toys were both of note in this decade.”

She giggles, picking up the giraffe she’d had her eye on. 

Five finds a purple bear, whistling as he realizes it’s Princess, to commemorate the dead Princess Diana. “This is what I love about humanity,” Five announces, holding up the bear. “A princess dies in a car accident, and we mass-produce a fucking teddy bear in honor of her memory.” 

“If only I had thought of the teddy bears when I destroyed the world,” Vanya jokes, not realizing this is the first time she’s really brought that up so lightly until she sees the pleased smile on Five’s face. “Never would have caused the apocalypse if I had known the people at Ty couldn’t make a doomsday bear.” 

“Would it have little goggles and teleport?”

“Are you implying that a doomsday bear would be modeled after you?”

“Of course a doomsday bear would be modeled after me. I was the only person alive during that time, I deserve it.”

“Your reward for surviving an apocalypse and saving the world is a beanie baby?”

“It should be.” 

“Alright, I’ll find an etsy that custom makes them when we get back to 2019 and get you doomsday bear.”

“What’s an etsy?” Five asks. 

“It’s like,” she purses her lips, trying to describe it. This isn’t the first time Five has been unclear on something that would have happened when he wasn’t present for it. “A website where people can get handmade products. Like people can sell their arts and crafts, and a lot of times people buy stuff with the intention of getting it personalized to what they want.”

“And there are people who make stuffed animals?”

“Oh, surely, there’s kind of a bit of everything on there.” 

He raises his brows, “There’s a lot I missed out on.”

“I’m sorry,” Vanya knows he probably doesn’t want to hear her apologize again, but she can’t help it. 

He kisses her cheek quickly, and she wonders if the people in the store assume them to be a married couple. They both have rings, so they likely do. “I didn’t mean to say that to upset you,” he promises. 

“Well, I refuse to let it happen again,” Vanya says. “I swear on Princess Diana bear.”

Five puts on a fake-British accent, holding up the stuffed animal to his face as he tells her, “Thank you for your service to the royal family.”

“Hey, quick question, are you aware your British accent sounds like Reginald?”

Five grimaces, lowering the bear. “Don’t say that. I’m so much better than Reginald. Exhibit A, beanie babies.”

“Are you trying to say that if Reginald gave us beanie babies he would be better?”

_ “Marginally.” _

She laughs again, surprised at how much she had, getting an idea as she looks back to the display. “We should get the others some, too.” 

“Alright, but you and I get to get more than them. It’s only fair, since they were being so bitchy when we last saw them.” 

“Are you getting Princess Diana bear?”

“Of course. You should get the giraffe, for sure, but I think you should also get this bear with the peace sign on it.” 

“To remind me not to destroy the planet again?”

“Precisely.” 

She hands him Wrinkles the Dog, “You’ve always wanted a puppy.”

“Does this mean I can’t get an actual puppy?”

“Not while we live around assassins.”

“My own wife, scorning my ability to nurture our dog,” Five sighs. “I’m naming this one Mr. Pennycrumb, and there’s  _ nothing  _ you can do to stop me.”

“The name for it is Wrinkles, though.”

“Don’t say that name in front of me or Mr. Pennycrumb ever again.” 

“Fine, name the stuffed animal Mr. Pennycrumb.”

“Thank you.”

She finds Chocolate the Moose for her third selection- her collection now consisting of it, Peace the Bear, and Twigs the Giraffe. 

“I think Diego should get Mystic.”

“Which is that one?”

“The unicorn. You know, because it could stab people with the horn.”

“How charming,” Five tells her. “Klaus gets the armadillo, and I will die on this hill.”

“Tank!” Vanya says, handing him the armadillo. “Excellent selection. Very cowboy.”

Five swells with pride at his gifting capabilities, and she stifles down more laughter. They both reach for Steg the Stegosaurus at the same time, asking in confirmation simultaneously,  _ “Luther?”  _

They share a smile, and Vanya finds Curly the Bear, gasping as she realizes it has the coveted Tush Tag, “You don’t know this, but we’ve just struck gold. This one is too fancy to not be Allison’s.”

He nods absentmindedly, grabbing Pouch the Kangaroo, “I think we should get this one for Grace.”

“Do robots accept gifts?”

“She would like it,” he tells her, with certainty. “I once gave her a Mother’s Day card, and I swear I never saw her look more human. She was very touched.” 

“You bought an android a Mother’s Day card?” 

“Technically, I  _ made _ an android a Mother’s Day card.” 

“That’s adorable.” She pauses a second. “Didn’t you always think of her as a machine though?”

He shrugs, “She was always kind to you. I appreciated that. Plus, when I asked her to explain certain concepts that I struggled with in physics, she always would explain it. And I was fascinated by the engineering it took to make her, and she’d answer the barrage of questions I asked regarding her processing whenever I had them.”

Vanya smiles, “You’re sweeter than you let on.”

“Don’t tell anybody, Vanya. I have a reputation to uphold.”

“You’re cute,” she blushes, quickly moving on. “I definitely think we should get Manny the Manatee for Ben. He’d appreciate it, even though he was so annoyed with us. I’m willing to bet he’d even forgive us, possibly. If Manny the Manatee were on the line.”

“Sure,” Five says, stuffing his hands into his pockets. 

They walk to the counter with their pile of beanie babies, stacking on a bunch of candies that would rot their teeth on top. The cashier smiles at them, asking if they’re buying presents for their kids, and Vanya remembers Christmas is about to happen for them. “Something like that,” she tells her, exchanging an amused glance with Five.

They walk outside with their bags, sitting on a bench outside and scarfing down the candy. When she starts placing the beanie babies inside of the briefcase, Five cackles. She frowns at him, brows raising, and he explains that that was the greatest use of the briefcase he’d ever seen. Vanya grins, leaning into his side. 

Some kid, about ten years old, calls out, “Get a room.”

Not wanting things to get awkward and sensing they would if she didn’t say something quickly, Vanya asks, “Do you think that’s the first time someone has used that phrase?”

“I hope so.”

“I doubt it,” she muses.

“No, shut up, Hargreeves. We’re making history here.” 

“We should get a bear to commemorate it.”

* * *

_ Twenty-Six Weeks Before _

It is about ten weeks into their fake marriage when it happens. 

They’re practicing at the target range when somebody finds them, hearing them speaking in Russian. Five is not sure what all he hears, but the man walks over to them, calling out something in Russian along the lines of,  _ ‘Oh, you speak Russian too? That’s cool! Let’s practice!’ _

Worried that the man had somehow heard exactly what they’d been talking about and panicking, Five does the first thing he can think of to make him uncomfortable enough to leave them alone. Which, of course means, leaning down to Vanya and kissing her on the mouth. 

Catching onto the fact that she’s supposed to be acting like his wife, she kisses him back, bearly tackling him in her enthusiasm to keep their cover. The man clears his throat, and Five is pretty certain he leaves. 

Still, they have to maintain the cover, so he keeps kissing her, backing her to the wall beside them, lifting her up. She wraps her legs around him, and he slams them more firmly to the wall, hands around her head to keep her from getting a concussion. 

Five moans into her mouth, and he feels wind sweep through his hair, undoubtedly brought on by her power. 

“I think the coast is clear,” Vanya says, pulling away for a second.

He feels like his eyes must look entirely wild, hating the fact that even in the late-30s body he’s grown hard against her. Politely, she doesn’t mention it. “Yeah,” he pants, starting to set her down.

“But somebody else might come,” she adds before he’s put her back to the ground.

“You’re right,” he agrees, wrapping her legs back around him and moving in again to kiss her. 

She grinds against his erection, and he uses all of his self-restraint to not start taking off either of their clothes. This is for a mission; it means nothing. He needs to remember that.

His hips thrust forward, nearly biting her lip when he sinks his tongue into her mouth. She whimpers, holding onto his shoulders and begging him not to stop.  _ ‘She’s doing that for the mission,’  _ he reminds himself, reaching under her shirt and grasping at her soft skin.  _ ‘This is acting, what we’re doing right now.’  _

“Nobody is going to suspect us, I don’t think,” Five says, trying to vocalize that this is just a mission for him too, even though it’s a lie. 

“That’s…  _ oh,  _ good.” His heart sinks, losing the small sliver of naive hope he’d had that maybe, just maybe it wasn’t for the mission after all. It was stupid of him to ever think that. Five having a crush that lasted for decades (which, yes, he could admit was him being in love with her at one point) meant nothing for her. His feelings had no effect on her own, and he needs to remember that. She’s her own person; she makes her own choices. None of those choices involved being with him.

He sets her down, breathing heavily. “We’re clear now,” he says. 

She nods, biting her lip. “Do you want to get something to eat?”

He’s thankful that she’s changed the subject, thankful that she’s not trying to let him be hopeful at all. If she gave him just the slightest bit of hope, he’d lose everything once she took it away.

* * *

_ Twenty-Five Weeks Before  _

The first contact she makes with another one of the Hargreeves is when she catches Ben in the briefcase room. She and Five are holding hands, walking around while he tells her all about the Commission and gestures around them. They know that Ben will be there, and they’re pretending that Five is giving her a tour. All of the employees give them a wide berth, seeing the coldness in Five’s eyes when anyone nears his wife (well, what they assume to be his wife.) As they reach the briefcase room, Ben grabbing a briefcase with an easy stealth, Vanya  _ accidentally  _ causes part of the roof to crumble down. Five blinks them over to Ben, blinking them all back to their room. 

“Good job,” Five tells Ben. “Did anybody see you while you were there?”

“Of course not,” Ben snaps. “I’m the only person in this goddamn family with any subtlety.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Vanya asks.

Ben’s left eye twitches. 

Vanya gives Five a confused look, trying to decipher what Ben is talking about, but he just shrugs and says, “Ben’s probably bitching about the others. Right, Ben?”

“I wish I was still dead.”

“You shouldn’t joke like that,” Vanya reprimands.

“Wasn’t joking, I promise you that.”

She frowns at him. 

“We got you a present.”

“Oh, right,  _ bribe  _ me to not complain…” Ben trails off. “Is that Manny the Manatee?” Vanya shoots a look to Five that clearly conveys,  _ ‘Told you so.’ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter will be up shortly, and I’ll post as many chaps as I can before day 3 comes!!! (Which means, until I fall asleep, I’ll be working on this.)


	3. If I Could Turn Back Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much if you’ve gotten this far!!! I will start working immediately to finish chapter four, and that one I promise will be posted by the time I go to bed! Chapter 5, 6, and 7 may come a little later, depending on how long chapter four takes me.

**_“I don't know why I did the things I did. I don't know why I said the things I said. Pride's like a knife, it can cut deep inside. Words are like weapons, they wound sometimes.” -Cher  
_ **

_  
Twenty-Four Weeks Before  _

Having a conversation with Ben last week was just the reminder Five needed. This was a mission. He was doing this for his family, and he needed to focus on that, only. 

Besides, Vanya didn’t have feelings for him. She’d been so focused on the mission, doing so well at convincing everyone that they were married. In fact, she had done so well that Five had almost fallen for it. He’d been so convinced that she wasn’t acting, that his feelings were reciprocated, that it was imperative Ben showed up when he did. If he hadn’t, Five would have made a complete fool of himself, which would have destroyed the mission completely, and every single one of the members of his family would be forced to live a cursed, doomed existence. 

If Five hadn’t had this realization, he would have damned them all to a terrible fate. Truly, he should have been thinking more clearly. 

Vanya pointed out a day after Ben left that he was acting different all of a sudden. Quickly, Five explained that Ben showing up reminded him the importance of the mission, that he wanted to act more professionally from then on, and then he praised her for her dedication to the mission (because she’d done well so far, and, for her first mission, he was very impressed. If Vanya were capable to make  _ him,  _ knowing that this was just a mission, be fooled, she’d done a splendid job.) 

Vanya had grimaced, and it would have hurt less if she had just said what she was thinking, he thought. He knew what she wanted to say, that she wished he had been professional this entire time, and he’d felt a stark pain of guilt in his stomach.

Their conversation has grown stilted since then, and he appreciates that she’s avoiding making things awkward between them when he’d failed the mission so terribly by not saying much at all. If she started telling him, for example, how disappointed she was, he’d deserve it, but it would certainly make things uncomfortable between them. Vanya had always been this sweet, though, and he appreciates that she’s consistently this kind for him, even now. It is nice to know that despite everything, she’s still as kind to him as she always had been.

It is his own fault that it makes him love her even more. 

He’s working on his equations while she reads right now. They’ll go on another assignment tomorrow, but they’re resting right now. She’s wearing one of her own shirts to bed, so he can see more of the skin at her thighs. His gaze had averted from her the second he’d noticed, blinking over and scribbling on the wall. 

Five is 99% certain the equations on the wall are complete nonsense. 

He drags the chalk over them, trying to ignore the fact that writing 5 and 7 so many times in his nonsensical equations was the numerical equivalent of writing ‘Mr. and Mrs. Hargreeves’ in pink pen on the flowery pages a fuzzy diary. If Vanya notices the fact that he’s doing this, she is kind enough not to say anything. 

“Five?”

His heartbeat picks up, and he pivots around (possibly with too much eagerness for just her casually saying his name, he knows.) “Yeah, V?”

“Do you think anybody suspects anything?”

“You’ve been listening into everyone’s conversations, haven’t you?” 

“That’s actually why I’m pointing it out,” Vanya’s face grows flushed. “Some lady said something earlier that she thought we were having some sort of argument, which, by the way, it’s weird that she’d even bring that up. But she’s been talking about us this entire time, so I’ve been following her discussions about it, assuming I could get valuable information from her. Anyways, she stopped talking about ships, which I’ve never really understood why she talks about anyways, and she said she thought we were fighting.”

“That’s odd that somebody talks about us that much,” Five agrees. “Why do you think she thinks we’re arguing, though?”

“I mean,” she clears her throat. “We have been a little, uh… awkward around one another. She said that we were acting overly polite, and then she started talking about us getting a divorce, which I really didn’t understand at all.”

“Why is she so invested in our relationship?” Five snaps, offended on Vanya’s behalf. 

“I just worry that maybe people  _ aren’t  _ buying all of this.”

“Oh.” Five deflates. “That makes sense.”

“Maybe we should try to be more convincing? At least in public?” 

“How do you propose we do that?”

* * *

_ Twenty-Three Weeks Before  _

Vanya needs to send a gift basket to thank Jennifer from accounting. 

When Jennifer from accounting had expressed doubt in Vanya and Five’s relationship and she’d relayed that message to Five, he’d gone out of his way to ensure they were a convincingly married couple. Even when they were alone in their bedroom, he didn’t drop the act, and she was shocked at his dedication to the mission. 

It probably makes her an awful person, how much she enjoys it. 

It probably makes her an even more awful person with how much she asks to walk around the grounds of the Commission. When Five and her are in public areas, he makes a point to be  _ blatant  _ about his affections. Each time she and Five do everything save take their clothes off and have sex in public, she can ignore the guilt at the fact that she takes immense pleasure in it. 

In the privacy of their own room, they feel more just like a domestic couple, but they’d gotten a little more comfortable around one another. Five had started sleeping in just his boxers to bed, and she made a point to not break contact with him for very long at all, lest somebody walk in on them at any moment. 

When they go out to train this morning, working on hand-to-hand combat instead, Vanya is capable of learning from him for all of twenty-eight minutes. 

She blames the fact that he’s hovering above her, panting. He’d tackled her to the ground, still making a point to not do anything that would hurt her, trying to teach her how to get out of a position similar to this. However, seeing him hovering above her, crouching and holding himself up with his palms on either side of her body, she couldn’t help herself.

Her lips pressed to his, effectively ending training.

She rolls them over, and he goes easily. Her palms fall to his side, almost mimicking the position he’d had them in before, except for her holding all the power. His eyes study hers, glowing blue, and he grins, like he’s ready for whatever she has in store. 

It almost feels like she collapses against him, but she’s still holding herself up, slipping her tongue into his mouth as they start kissing again. His hands go around her, embracing her, and she sighs headily, legs locking around his waist. The noise of approval he makes only makes her bolder, slipping her cold hands under his shirt. He yelps at how cold she is, telling her  _ ‘to start fucking wearing jackets, Christ’  _ and shutting up as she slips her hands into his pants instead.

“Uh, guys.” 

Vanya groans, and Five sits up, easily plucking her hand from his trousers as he glares at Diego. “How did you know where to find us?”

“I went in the direction of the tornado-like winds,” Diego comments, gesturing around him. “Figured I might find you guys. So. You’re fucking now? That’s sweet.”

Vanya’s face burns, “Why are you here?”

“Telling you that Klaus and I completed our part of the mission. Be glad he’s not here to see this. He’d have  _ much  _ to say.”

Five’s voice is seething as he asks, “Why aren’t you together?” Vanya understands why he’s angry; it makes sense that all of them stick together at any point when they were on the Commission grounds. It wasn’t safe of Diego and Klaus to split up 

“I wanted to make sure that he got back safe.  _ Plus,  _ this isn’t the first time I’ve been here, remember.”

“I remember, unfortunately.” 

“Well, I’ll leave you two crazy kids to have fun.”

“Shut up,” Five groans. “You  _ know  _ it’s for the mission we have that we’re doing this.”

“That boner for the mission too?” 

Five sighs loudly, shifting his legs, regardless. 

“Have her home by nine, ya hear?” Diego tells him.

“Shut  _ up.” _

“Are you guys all doing okay?” Vanya pipes up, mainly because she doesn’t want them to test their abilities on avoiding bullets. 

“We are,” Diego tells her, offering her a smile like it has been forced out of him. Still, this is the most civil they’ve been as long as she’s ever known, and she’s thankful for it. “Are you guys holding up okay here?”

Vanya nods. 

“Good,” he says. Looking pained about saying it, he says. “I love you two. Be safe until your mission is over. And that includes wearing condoms!” 

Before either of them can speak, he opens the briefcase, vanishing before their widened eyes. 

* * *

_ Twenty-Two Weeks Before  _

Time continues passing by, and Five starts researching dimensional travel, no longer worrying about it raising any red flags. He’d done enough assignments by this point that none of the Commission employees suspected anything anymore. Even the woman from corrections who’d been on his ass earlier had stopped talking. Sure, it was likely due to the fact that her head was floating leisurely somewhere in the Atlantic ocean, but he figures that, either way, he and Vanya are doing a fine job.

Every night before bed, she offers a status report, and he resists the urge to press her to the mattress and show her how proud he was of her for doing such a good job at convincing them all. Instead, he kisses her cheek, figuring it’s still safe, and pulls her to his chest, running his fingers through her hair. He’d gotten in the habit of playing with her hair, and it soothed the frustration in his body, tamed the side of him that kept yearning for  _ more.  _ Realistically, nobody will likely come to their room, but he feels like it’s better to be safe than sorry. 

Sure, he liked touching her for reasons  _ outside  _ of the task at hand, but he had to be  _ convincing.  _ Otherwise, there would have been no point to their mission at all. 

So, he plays with her hair. And kisses her cheek. And hopes the entire time before they fade into unconsciousness that she’ll want to walk around the grounds again come morning, so that they’ll be able to do even more, under the eyes of the Commission employees. 

And each morning, she does want to. Maybe she feels cooped up in their room. Maybe she just wants to see the inner workings of the organization that they’re slowly destroying. Either way, they regularly spend their time on the grounds, not really seeing anything around them at all because they’re wrapped up in one another. He grows more and more bold with his touches, figuring if the Commission already thought of them as sex-crazed perverts, he should keep up that status, make sure that they  _ earn  _ it. 

Vanya doesn’t seem to mind at all, even though he constantly worries. Anytime he starts to pull away from her, she moves her mouth back to him. He cannot believe how wonderful she is at this, pretending to be in love with him, but he respects how talented she is, how devoted she is. 

God, he  _ really  _ appreciates it.

At his moan, she stops momentarily above him, hand working inside of his trousers, murmuring, “Too much?”

Is she asking for herself or him?

Fuck. 

Regretfully, he pulls her hand away. “I think so,” he says, trying to make it about him instead of her. Clearly, she’s embarrassed about asking, and he doesn’t want her to feel embarrassed. She makes a small, discomforted sound, and he assures, “It’s fine, don’t worry.” 

“You’re sure?” Vanya asks, blushing and climbing off of him. He imagines getting all of the fingernails ripped off his hands would hurt less than that. 

“Of course,” he murmurs, clearing his throat. “Do you wanna go back to our room? I need to read through the files for the mission I have coming up.”

She nods, and he closes his eyes, steadying his breathing, before taking her back to their room. 

It’s a mission, it’s a mission, it’s a  _ mission.  _

* * *

_ Twenty-One Weeks Before  _

“I thought it was an exaggeration,” Vanya comments, studying the lavish party around them. “When I heard about all of the excess, I thought surely there was some exaggeration there.”

“Yeah, they’re in for a treat real quick,” Five grimaces. 

“Have you ever cheated the stock market?” Vanya asks, taking his arm and narrowly avoiding a very drunk couple. “Knowing the future and all?”

“Isn’t that insider training?”

“Answer the question.”

“I mean, I’m not  _ against _ the concept. I just have never had any reason to do so.” 

A man reaches out for her, wearing a dress that is really much more modest than the styles she’d grown up with but still had made her slightly uncomfortable to throw on. Five was lucky, never having to change his requisite suit much at all, except for changing the styles occasionally to more accurately reflect the decades. Of course, considering the fact that he nearly chopped off the man’s hand that had touched her, he still stands out in a crowd. 

Vanya frowns in the direction of the man, clutching his bloodied hand after Five leads them off. “Was that necessary?”

“If he couldn’t keep his hands to himself, he doesn’t deserve hands,” Five argues, snatching two glasses of champagne and handing her one. “Besides, his hand isn’t completely severed.” 

Vanya scowls at him. 

“Oh, please, I’m here to kill someone. Half-cutting off somebody’s hand is small potatoes in comparison.”

“I’d argue it’s more three fourths.”

“Eh, same thing.”

“Still  _ wrong.”  _

“You killed seven and a half billion people, you have no room to talk.”

Vanya shrugs. He’s not wrong. “I feel like that guy trying to grab my ass makes an excellent case for me to never wear dresses.”

“I don’t particularly care what you wear, anyways. If somebody thinks you look out of place, I’ll-“

“Don’t say you’ll chop off their hands,” Vanya warns.

“What about  _ ‘cut out their eyes’?”  _

“That feels inappropriate too, yes.”

“You’re very particular about how I act towards people we’ve never met before.”

“You haven’t asked me to dance the entire time we’ve been here. Doesn’t that warrant you chopping off your legs?”

“I don’t think that’s how it works, no.”

_ “Please.” _

“You’re only asking because you found out I know swing dancing and want proof.”

“Yes, that is the only reason.”

He sighs, “You don’t even know how to, what’s the point?”

“Because I refuse to believe you just  _ know  _ that.”

“I don’t  _ just  _ know that. I had an assignment in the 1920s and got bored.”

“Did you meet a pretty lady to teach you all the dance moves?”

“Oh, yes, I believe she called me  _ lover boy.” _

Vanya snorts. 

“Okay, fine, if I prove that I know swing dancing, you have to go up and sing.”

_ “Sing?” _

“I know you can, I’ve heard you do it.”

“I don’t know any songs from this time, though.”

“Which would make it entirely hilarious when you sang the late 80’s power ballad, ‘If I Could Turn Back Time’ and pass it off as your own. They’re all drunk anyways, they won’t notice.”

At her dubious expression, he adds, “C’mon, I’ll even accompany you on the piano. I can jazz it up so nobody notices!”

“Wait, so you’re telling me that all I have to do to get you to both do the Lindy Hop  _ and  _ play the piano in public is belt out some  _ Cher?”  _

“I’d probably go for Charleston, but yes.”

“Oh my god, yeah, I agree.” 

They shake hands, and Five, with a completely blank expression, proves that he can swing dance for the duration of about two and a half songs before blinking them both to the piano in the middle of the room, setting her on top of it and staring up at her expectantly.

Everyone is watching them, not seeming to care at all that somebody just teleported in front of their very eyes as they’re all, in fact, highly inebriated. Five plays the piano with about as much skill as when he was about eleven, but his smile is wide enough that she takes no care at all to belt out the Cher lyrics, remembering how Diego and Ben used to sing the song loudly when Five entered the room to dick around with him when he talked about time travel too much. They are both giggling more than performing at one point, tears in their eyes, and they both bow to the crowd, who again, don’t particularly notice because they’re all drunk off their asses. 

Before Five finds his mark, he teaches her the Charleston and she shows him a few areas to work on with the piano. She can feel herself blush as she touches his hands, adjusting his position, so he’s not just doing that thing that people who don’t play piano do where they more poke the keys. Her hair spills over his shoulder, and he turns back, grinning at her widely. They both drink a lot of champagne after he’s gotten his mark, and he yells, very loudly, ‘I love my wife!’ to anybody who listens, making her laugh and blush when they realize he’s referring to her. 

And she understands it then- why people would live to the excess in the first place, if every night felt like tonight.

* * *

_ Twenty Weeks Before  _

He sometimes is hit with the reminder that when he goes home, this will all be over. 

Five doesn’t know how he can possibly  _ tell  _ her that the time that she’s been his wife has been the best time of his life, that he’s been in love with her as long as he can remember, that he wishes that all of this were real. Telling her would inevitably lead to her letting him down easy and him wishing he’d never said anything at all. 

More than anything, he wishes that he had never left her in the first place. It’s not right for him to assume what they would have been had he stayed, but he had destroyed the possibility of ever truly finding out from an arrogant decision he’d made at thirteen. He’d left his best friend behind, had damaged her. Yes, he knew that there was so much more to it, that she experienced many terrible things before she destroyed the world, but he’d  _ left  _ her. He’d left her when he’d promised to protect her, and the regret that came after would last until he’d gotten in the Commission, imagining that he could save all of his family. 

But then he  _ had  _ come back to her, left her again, and she’d destroyed the world. 

And he’s not angry at her, not anymore. He loves her, and he doesn’t think he could stay angry at her forever. Not Vanya. Anybody else, sure.

Sure, the apocalypse had addled his mind. He wasn’t going to likely ever fully recover from that, but his heart could not hold onto any malice at all. Especially when it was her body beside him when he had nightmares. It was Vanya who comforted him when he woke up, crying in her arms wordlessly while she softly murmured to him, scratching her nails through his hair until he stopped crying and fell back asleep with her. 

At this point, it’s the guilt that keeps him from confessing his feelings. He loves Vanya dearly, and he knows that it’s wrong of him to tell her his feelings and confuse her even more. She’s already been with two other people since he’s come back, and her jumping into a relationship to appease him would be  _ awful.  _ He wouldn’t be able to bear looking at her, knowing that he’d taken advantage of her vulnerabilities like that.

What right did he even have to be with her? The only reason she’s done all of what they’ve done during this time because she’s trying to do her job successfully, trying to protect their family. 

He  _ can’t  _ tell her, can’t do that to her. 

And… if he’s being completely honest, which he’d loathe and abhor being, he’s afraid that she’ll reject him. 

Five does not consider himself a particularly modest or humble person. There had never been any point in his life where he didn’t consider himself above most people in the same room as him; he’s likely one of the brightest minds of his generation. And, yes, his arrogance was the common denominator in all of the mistakes he’s ever made, but his pride hasn’t taken a hit from it.

However, there’s a major difference between confidence in things he understood and his ability to face being rejected by someone he’s cared about since he was a child. He didn’t  _ want  _ to understand rejection from Vanya, so he refused to tell her his feelings at all. 

* * *

_ Nineteen Weeks Before  _

Allison is their next visitor, not trying to hide at all from any of the Commission employees. In fact, she loudly tells them to get out of her way when she walks over to them, brushing a non-existent speck of dust off her shoulders. Five frowns at her, but she doesn’t seem to care at all. Vanya is pretty sure that she’d use her rumor if she was concerned at all, but she’s not banking on it, already trying to figure out what damage control they’d have to do here afterwards. 

“Where have you gotten with inter-dimensional travel?” Allison demands, sitting in front of them with a frantic look in her eyes. Vanya realizes now why she’d argued the least of all of them when Vanya and Five took this mission; she wanted to get back to Claire.

Five answers in Ancient Greek, using more metaphorical language than literal language, but Allison figures out what he’s saying easily. 

“How soon?” she asks in English.

Five glances around a few times, saying a number in Latin. Allison’s eyes fill with a mixture of hope and anxiety. “That’s… that should be fine, yeah. You’re certain, though?” 

He nods.

“Okay.”

She sets her head in her hands. Hesitantly, Vanya touches her arm, and Allison glances up with a small, watery smile. “Have you guys been alright?”

“We have,” Vanya answers. “We’ll get you back to Claire. I promise.”

She probably should not make a promise like that on behalf of Five, but he doesn’t argue, just making a small noise of agreement. There is something haunted about the way he’s looking at them, and it fills her with anxiety. If he wasn’t absolutely certain he  _ could  _ bring Allison back to Claire, she knows that he would have corrected Vanya. He’s certain he can, but she doesn’t know what it’ll mean that he has to do. It worries her, thinking of him somehow hurting himself-

“I won’t stop until I get you back to her,” Five tells Allison, gently resting his hand on her arm beside Vanya’s. “It’ll happen, just trust that I’ll get you to her, okay?”

Allison blinks rapidly, tears forming at the corners of her eyes again. “I had lost all hope, honestly. That I’d ever see my daughter again. I wasn’t ever going to do what I did to get her again, but…”

There’s a deep sadness in her eyes, and Vamya wonders what exactly she regrets right now. 

All of a sudden, it hits her that  _ she’s  _ the reason that Allison is suffering this much, and she feels like she’s suffocating. 

Five and Allison continue speaking, but Vanya cannot say anything at all, realizing how selfish she had been. Yes, she and Five were following everything that they had to do, down to the last letter, but she’d been thinking only of herself this entire time. 

God, she’s  _ awful.  _ Five had only taken this mission because he was trying to lessen the amount of pain their family went through, and, this entire time, she’d only thought of herself. 

She remembers how it had been Luther to suggest they do this, that he’d wanted so badly for Allison to be happy that he’d convinced them to follow his plan. How Five had selflessly agreed to it all. Vanya understood now, that her reasons for going were entirely self-serving. This entire time, everything she had done had been self-serving. 

She can feel Five take her hand, but she flinches away as if he’s burned her. It’s not  _ his _ fault, but she doesn’t want his comfort, doesn’t deserve his comfort. Everything she had done up to this point to make her feel as awful as she did now ensured that she  _ never _ deserved anything kind. 

The world had burned at her hands, and she had forced other people to put out the fire.

Vanya is pretty sure that she is hyperventilating, and she tries to calm her breathing down, knowing that the walls would start to grow cracked and frayed. Was there anything she hadn’t destroyed? 

Her body is shaking, and she realizes that she is entrenched in darkness. Maybe she’d destroyed the building at one point, and she was laying in the detritus. Maybe she’s dead, actually. She’d never asked Ben what it was like to be a ghost (and she wishes she had, wishes she had cared about somebody other than herself for once.) Did the world become dark when one died? 

And then she feels Five’s hand on her shoulders. Even though they are bathed in the darkness, she can hear his soft voice, can feel his urgent touch. She tries to tune into what he’s saying, and she catches onto the fact that he’s taken them somewhere and that Allison has gone back home. Beyond that, she cannot decipher anything at all, and she feels herself start to sink to the floor, feeling Five’s arms around her as he continues speaking, likely understanding that she can’t pick up anything at all. 

It’s as if she’s underwater. 

When she’d been on the highest dosing of pills in her life, she’d felt like she’d been underwater, trying so hard to breathe that she couldn’t pick out any of her surroundings at all. It feels that way now, except she’s not on any pills at all. 

How odd was it, that she knew a single panic attack may cause the end of the world. 

No matter how hard she tried for the rest of her life, she wouldn’t be able to control these moments. 

Five had been right with his first instinct. She should be dead. 

She should end herself before she ends the world. 

Through the haze, she picks up on Five promising her that she’ll be safe. 

‘ _ It’s not myself that I’m worried about anymore,’  _ she thinks. It was odd how it worked out that way. 

“I can’t lose you again,” Five tells her, and her entire body convulses. She’d said those words once, and he’d left anyway. He could manage without her. “I’m not  _ allowing _ it.”

Does he know where her line of thinking is? Or is he guessing?

“I don’t know what happened down there, but I’ll fix it, okay?” He sounds frantic, perturbed by her inability to respond. “I’ll do anything if it means that you’re okay again. I’ll fix it, I promise.”

She knows that there’s no way to fix this, that she’d know the damage done even if they’d turned back the clock and changed it all. Even if the world became a better place after they were done, she’d know that she’d still once caused it to end. She’d live with that knowledge for the rest of her life. 

And maybe that’s why she wanted it to be over. 

“Just stay with me,” Five says. “Just stay, okay? That’s all you have to do.” 

Would it be even more selfish to leave him behind? When he asked her not to go? He was trying to make everything right. Was it her obligation to do what he asked to make it so?

He picks her up when she’s stopped crying, just staring ahead numbly. She doesn’t object when he cleans her face. The only words she’s capable of saying when he asks her if a shower would help, and she weakly says that she doesn’t even think she’d be able to hold herself up. She’s not thinking when she asks him if he’d be willing to help her, but he doesn’t argue at all. 

It feels... clinical when he touches her, like he’s forcing it to be so. Clearly, he doesn’t want to overstep any boundary at all, despite the fact that she’s stepped over every one of his. Five’s eyes fill with guilt when he realizes that he’s going to have to go in there with her, and he apologizes as he quickly undresses, keeping a hold on her to keep her from falling over as he does. 

She isn’t sure if she’s crying or if it’s the water surrounding her, but he doesn’t say anything about it, respecting her silence. Even though his touch is purposefully clinical, it’s gentle, the way he cleans her body quickly and thoroughly. When she’s finally clean, he takes her to their bedroom, dressing her in flannel pajamas and laying her against the bed. When her eyes close shut, she hears him whisper, sounding so young and small despite being decades older than her mentally and a few years older than her physically, “I’ll make it better, Vanya. I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has read this fic, and I’m dying to hear y’all’s thoughts so far! I hope that you all have enjoyed so far. 
> 
> Also, I just want to say. Thank you all so much for the outpouring of love for my day one!! Those comments all made me tear up, and I promise I’ll get to them when I can! I’m assuming y’all would prefer actual content than replies to comments, but I PROMISE that I will get back to them. I love you all so much for your kindness, and I regularly read those comments when I need a pick-me-up. You’re all so amazing!! 💕💕💕


	4. Lovely Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sorry, guys. 😔 However, I hope you enjoy this chapter update, and I’m trying not to make any promises with writing anymore LMAO.

**“When I wake up in the morning, love**

**And the sunlight hurts my eyes**

**And something without warning, love**

**Bears heavy on my mind**

**Then I look at you**

**And the world's alright with me**

**Just one look at you**

**And I know it's gonna be**

**A lovely day” -Bill Withers**

_Eighteen Weeks Before_

He doesn’t know how to handle this; he’d never had to deal with something like this before. It isn’t that he doesn't _want_ to help her, but his wife has gone almost entirely despondent at this point. There is a part of him that keeps wondering if she’d ever gotten like this before, during the time he was gone. If she had, he doesn’t know he’d react, but the guilt presses against his chest regardless. 

A thought passes by him once, unbidden, and he has to leave her behind for a few seconds when he feels his stomach completely flip at the realization. When she doesn’t respond to anything he says, he thinks of Dolores. 

Not only does the thought make him feel guilt and not only does it make him even more concerned, it makes him want to talk to her even more. The thought that he’d live the rest of his life in isolation again only makes the feeling of his clenched chest grow worse. 

He admits the thoughts he has to her when he lays down in bed beside her. When she glances up at him, the words start to spill from his mouth, wanting the gnawing feeling against his skin to go away. She doesn’t respond, really, at least not with words. However, she does offer him her hand, and he squeezes her palm when their hands clasp together. 

She doesn’t object when he pulls her close, just presses her nose to his chest and inhales sharply. 

“There will likely be another one of the others coming soon,” Five tells her, running his fingers through her hair. A small noise leaves her throat, and he starts to pull away before she mutters for him to keep doing it. Happy that he is able to help in this small way, he tangles his fingers through her hair and hums to her softly, not realizing he’s humming a piece she once played for him until a small, contended whine leaves her throat. 

“You should sleep,” he mumbles. It’s technically all she’d really done for the past week, but it’s actually the appropriate time for her to sleep. He’s refused to take any assignments, which none of the Commission argues with, clearly realizing it wouldn’t behoove them, that he’d kill them without a second thought if they tried to take him away from his wife or make his wife go on a mission with him. “I’ll be right here if you need me at all.”

“Can you, um-”

He raises his brows. “Don’t worry about telling me whatever you need to, V. I won’t judge you, no matter what.”

Apparently more comfortable not saying it in English, she mumbles the request in French quietly. 

With only a little concern, he wraps his arms around her. He supposes that she can see this for what it is, so it makes sense that she would be shy asking him to cuddle with her. “You don’t have to worry about asking me for anything you need, Vanya. Especially when it’s something like this, which I enjoy.” Friends cuddle all the time, he reminds himself. He needs to get back into her line of thinking. If he doesn’t, the second this assignment is done, and she asks him to file for a divorce (or even asks him to complete nullify the marriage with time travel, so they’d essentially have never been married at all), he’ll have to deal with the pain of knowing that _all_ of this wasn’t real. 

It’s better to remember what this is, really. 

“I’m your best friend, remember?” Five brushes his lips to the nape of her neck, smiling at the shiver that runs down her spine. Perhaps she’s ticklish there. “I like comforting you.”

She turns her head, smiling just a little. It’s enough to nearly take his breath away, having barely been able to get any responses from her at all the past week. The smile feels like she’s finally come alive again, and he wants to kiss her lips, to taste the small expression of joy on his tongue. 

“It feels nice to lay beside you,” she whispers, pressing her forehead to his. “I don’t ever want to move.”

“I don’t either.” 

Vanya laughs, and he feels the rumble of her chest against his own. “We should agree to never leave here. Just stay in this bed forever.”

Five’s grin only widens when she sets her hand against his cheek. “It feels so weird to touch somebody else,” Five admits, placing his own hand atop hers, holding it in place. “Sometimes, when I was out there, it felt like I’d forgotten what human contact felt like.”

She kisses his nose. “I’m always here to remind you.”

* * *

_Seventeen Weeks Before_

“Someone is on their way,” Vanya mutters to him, grabbing him by the tie and pulling him down. “Kiss me.”

Without hesitation, he presses his lips to hers, lifting her up off the ground and pressing her to the wall. She hisses as one of his hands tangles into her hair, keeping her from slamming her head against the wall. When she tells him to pull her hair, he doesn’t comment, just tugging at the strands he had in his grasp, swallowing the moans she makes as they come. 

The person bypasses them in the hallway, and neither of them stop. His mouth finds her neck, sucking a bruise to the skin, and she starts shrugging off her top, letting it fall to their feet as his tongue travels to her chest, groaning when he realizes she’s not wearing a bra. 

“Vanya,” he gasps against her skin, teeth scraping against her nipple before he tips his head up to her again. “Oh, god, _Vanya._ Fuck, fuck, I love you.”

“I love you too.” Her voice is a cry, holding on to her best friend for dear life and grinding against his growing erection. “I need you. Touch me, _please.”_

He doesn’t argue with her, holding her up by her thighs as his mouth travels down, trying to get his face between her legs. She slid down the wall, feeling like any second she might fall over, but he’s careful to keep her held up, tugging her pants and underwear down in one move, just enough that she was exposed to him, still somewhat covered in the hallway just near the briefcases. 

His head reaches between her legs, and she pulls him away. At his confused glance, she lays on her back, imagining the position he’d had her in before would inevitably lead to one of them getting injured and not wanting to explain it to whichever of the others that were supposed to meet them this time when they went to grab another briefcase. No matter how they would try to justify an injury from sex, they’d certainly sense it for the bullshit that it’d be, considering the fact that she had a bruise growing and Five’s saliva against her neck. 

“Keep going,” she commands when she lays back, and his confusion changes into something else, leaning forward and immediately sliding his tongue inside of her. Her hands sink into his hair, grinding against his face, feeling her mouth open in shock at the feeling of his mouth moving against her. “Oh, God, don’t stop, Five.”

He doesn’t, licking at her until her thighs are shaking. Just as she feels all of the frustration that had been building up in all of the time that they’d been together, another voice calls out, “Oh, God, _please_ stop, Five.”

“Ben?” they both ask at the same time. Five barely moves his head, just lifting it up enough that he can communicate with him.

“Listen, I really don’t care if you guys…” Ben shakes his head, not subtle in the way that he glances at the slickness between Vanya’s legs, at the tenting of Five’s trousers. “Could you have at least done this in your _room?”_

“We were trying to keep a Commission agent from asking questions.”

“Really? Because I would have _so_ many questions if I saw you two rolling around in public, especially the fact that you are at Five’s _job—”_

“I’m an _assassin._ Don’t think that a bunch of killers draw their morality line at a little cunnilingus between two consenting adults.”

“I think hearing you say the word _cunnilingus_ just made me decide to become celibate.”

Five rolls his eyes, gently pulling Vanya’s clothes back on her as he asks, “Did you get everything you needed?”

“I was close,” Vanya assures. “It’s okay.”

“Jesus Christ, Vanya, he was asking _me._ Me. Ben, who you have both just traumatized. It’s bad enough that I have walked in on every single one of you, aside from Five, when you were ‘discovering your bodies’ just because I wanted to check in on you guys at night.”

“Hey, I’ve walked in on you before too,” Five points out.

“What have _I_ walked into?” Klaus chirps, and all of them yelp as they realize he’s rounded the corner. Vanya realizes that she’s stumbled right into Ben’s body, and she’s pressed to his side. “Am I about to witness the nerd squad _study some anatomy?”_ He winks as he says it.

They all frown at him, and he shrugs. “Fine, I guess I’m the only one here who thinks it’d be hot. So, I was able to get intel from this dead guy, which, by the way, this place is _filled_ with dead people, and all of the stuff dealing with inter-dimensional travel is actually accessible to us all! So, our mission is practically done, right?”

Ben starts to open his mouth, and Vanya tells him under her breath, “What you just saw was the first time Five has tried that on me. You really want to be around for the first few weeks after him going down on me the first time?”

She doesn’t think that Five or Klaus hear her. Ben speaks softly enough that only her ears are capable of picking it up. “Admit it, and I’ll defend you.” He speaks again, clarifying his command, though she’d already figured out what he was asking. “Nod your head if the _only_ reason that _you_ went on this mission was to—”

Vanya doesn’t let him finish his sentence, nodding her head sharply. Ben’s eyes widen, clearly not having expected her to be so blunt.

But it’s true, isn’t it? No matter how pure Five’s intentions had been, hers had always been to experience being married to him. To experience a life that she’d once dreamed of. She hadn’t wanted this to get back to their original timeline. Truth be told, she’d had nothing to go back to in that world. As much as she feels pain for Allison, she had made this decision selfishly. 

And, given everything that she’d gone through, maybe it really was _okay_ to be a little selfish. All of them had been selfish before, and wanting to be at Five’s side is the most innocent thing she could do to _be_ selfish. Ending the world had been her other act of selfishness, and she wishes she could change that. However, denying herself what she’d wanted for years had _led_ to it. Shouldn’t she avoid forcing down feelings when it had led to something so atrocious before?

“Their mission is not over,” Ben blurts, looking disbelieving that he is actually saying these words. “I need them to do something else. To assure that I stay alive and don’t just… die the second we go back to the original timeline.”

“I don’t think that’s how—” Ben and Klaus exchange a _look,_ and Vanya realizes that they might have been experiencing something similar, in figuring out their feelings, while she and Five had been gone. In a completely expressionless, bored tone, Klaus amends, “Oh, you’re right, Ben. I sense it. With my death powers. You’ll die if they don’t stay here for another… sixteen weeks.”

“Why sixteen?” Ben asks, confused.

Apparently not caring about subtlety any longer, Klaus announces, “Because _five_ plus _seven_ plus _four_ is sixteen, and I want them to remember who to name their babies after. You just _know_ that Five doesn’t wear rubbers.”

* * *

_Sixteen Weeks Before_

It is nearly impossible to justify what they’re doing as things _just friends_ do. After Five had gone down on her last week, they’d stayed in their room for the next three days before his mission, all waking hours devoted to eating her out, coaxing out orgasm after orgasm after orgasm, trying to make up for the fact that Ben had walked in on them.

Their next mission takes them in the 1930s, and they stare at the desolate streets, such a stark contrast to the lavishness of just a decade before.

“You know,” Vanya says, passing out granola bars and other non-perishables to the homeless people they passed by. (She’d justified that the timeline could choke when he’d asked why she was stacking up a bunch of food in her backpack, which Five had just shrugged at, secretly proud of his wife for helping starving people, knowing how awful a feeling it was to starve very intimately.) “I never really put any of our history lessons into perspective before this. Is that bad? Do you think ordinary people think about that?”

She doesn’t mean ordinary in the sense of having _powers;_ she means it in the sense of not being a child trafficked and raised by a billionaire. It had never really occurred to him what life would be like without the affluent lifestyle until the moment he’d landed in a world where nobody else had lived. Five’s first experience with starvation had been his own. and he wonders if she’d ever struggled. Her apartment had been modest, not in the best part of town. Of course, if she’d been starving, Five wouldn’t have been able to tell. She’d never eaten much as a kid, and he imagines that habit has remained as unchanged as her height in her older age. “I don’t think most people tend to think of things that happened before they were alive as anything significant,” Five tells her, answering her question. He’d wondered this before when he’d traveled through time. If it was normal to have felt so disconnected with people from lifetimes ago. “Sometimes it’s still vexing, to know I’ve seen Kennedy right before he died and to know that he is only fifteen years old as we speak.”

“Does it ever feel overwhelming?” Vanya asks him, voice small, taking his hand. “Knowing that you’re likely the only person in the world who can time travel without those briefcases, and knowing that there’s so many things you could do with that information?”

He shrugs, thinking back on all he’d thought about and theorized about when he was much younger. “The thing is… the smallest changes in the timeline could cause consequences far graver than any occurrence in history. Stopping the end of the world had always been my goal, once I could actually freely travel through time. Doing anything that could cause another one was just… too much for me.”

She blushes, sheepishly asking, “Was giving food to those people something that could cause it?”

“Giving food to those people was _kind_ and _thoughtful.”_ If she was somebody else, he may not say these things, but he would never discourage Vanya doing something kind. It would be like if he tried to discourage her from cleaning his wounds when he was a teen; the only thing that it would result in would be seeing her face crumple up and watching some of the kindness in her, the kindness that he’d fallen in love with in the first places, start to wilt. 

Besides, shaming her for helping these people and saying that it would cause the end of the world when he’d seen his former colleagues decimate multiple neighborhoods when trying to find their mark was _egregious._

Five clears his throat, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I appreciate you, you know. That you would even think about that.”

She shrugs. “I know that there wasn’t anybody around when you were starving, but I like to think that if there _had_ been that you’d have met someone who was willing to help out.”

His mouth flops open like a fish. She said it so easily, like what she was saying wasn’t the kindest thing anybody had ever said to him in his life. 

Nobody, _nobody_ would ever compare to her. There was nobody in the world that he could imagine making him feel this way, and she did it without even _trying._

“Sorry,” she blurts, face going red. “I know that’s kind of stup—”

Before she can finish the thought, his lips are crashing with hers. “Don’t apologize,” he whispers against her lips. “Don’t _ever_ apologize for making me love you even more.”

Her arms wrap around his torso. “You’re a really good friend, Five.”

Five deflates, wondering if maybe they’d entered some sort of ‘friends with benefits’ situation without him realizing. _(Married with benefits? Or did it not count if the marriage was a sham?)_ “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had,” Five promises. Even though he desperately wishes for them to be _more_ than that, she really _is_ the greatest friend he’d ever had and would ever have. He has never stopped loving her as a friend; his heart has just expanded to include her in another way. She is his best friend, his family, and his wife. The love he feels for her encompasses all of those things, like she holds just a small portion of his soul within her grasp. 

Even if she doesn’t feel the same way. 

“I’m lucky to be your friend, my Vanya.” _That_ adequately described her. Vanya wasn’t just his family and she wasn’t just his friend and she wasn’t just the love of his life. All that mattered to him was that she was his Vanya. And in some capacity, he imagines she always will be. When she gets married to someone else, she’ll still be _something_ to him because… if she’s not, he doesn’t think he could manage living in a world with other people at all, knowing that the one that was most important to him didn’t want him around. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Her voice holds a sadness that he can’t explain. He knows not where it comes from, just that he hopes to take it away from her.

* * *

_Fifteen Weeks Before_

Her breaths are coming out in sharp pants, keeping her hands knotted in Five’s hair. They have not progressed past this, and she almost wonders if he’s doing this to help her stress levels while they’re held up in the Commission. She got the idea that he enjoyed it too, based on the fact that he’s pretty much completely abandoned training her since the first time, spending most of the time between her legs until she tired out, pulling her to her chest and letting her cuddle up to him while she regained her ability to breathe. 

“Five, I think I n-need,” she whimpers, and he crawls up to where their eyes are on each other. A broken sound leaves her when she sees his slick chin. 

“Too much?” he asks, kissing her and letting her taste herself as his tongue slips into her mouth. 

Honestly, she wants _more,_ but she has never had this much attention put on her before. A few of her exes had gone down on her, but her two most recent flings, the ones she’d had since she’d been reunited with Five, had either not had time to do so or had not bothered to do so. She isn’t sure _anybody_ had ever done it with the exuberance that Five does, and she wonders if he was like this with his other partners. 

As much as she enjoys him taking care of her though, she wants to return the favor, feeling like she’s been a little lazy in not doing so. Once she has gained control of her breathing, she tells him, “It’s your turn now.”

Five’s brows raise. “You don’t have to,” he tells her. 

She reaches for his belt buckle, assuring, “I want to.”

He doesn’t protest, helping her by unbuttoning his trousers and shoving them down. Her fingers palm him through his boxers, stroking him a few times before she thinks of freeing him, imagining that if he was going to help her relieve her stress while she was here that she should return the favor. Plus, she’d always been curious. Still, she wants to make sure that he _really_ wants this. “This is okay, right?”

“Yes,” he hisses. “Touch me, Vanya.”

As soon as she tugs down his boxers, his cock springs free, and she drags her thumb over him, leaning forward and opening her mouth. 

“Fuck, I love you,” he groans, and she smiles. It’s nice of him to reassure her that he still loves her, that she’s still his best friend, despite what they are doing. 

A thought slips to her mind, that she’s happy that _she_ is the one touching him, not some random person, and she moans against him, nearly choking as she takes him further. 

“Careful,” he grunts, and she can hear the frown in his voice as he pets her hair. She looks up at him with wide eyes, and his eyes fill with tenderness, his hands somehow impossibly even more gentle as he strokes her hair. They don’t break eye contact after that, and she feels a sense of pride at the soft moans he gives her, using her hands to keep from gagging again before just switching to dragging her tongue against him. Only when he tells her that he is close does she take him in her mouth again, keeping her hand moving until he’s spilling inside of her, apologies stuttering out of his throat as she swallows all he gives her. 

When she pulls away, another wave of pride washes over her, climbing on top of her husband’s lap and setting her forehead into the crook of his neck, accepting his arms when he wraps them around her, still panting. 

She places a kiss to the skin nearest to her, the exhaustion she’d experienced before coming back to her. 

“Do you want to take a shower?” Five asks, and she groans sleepily, causing him to chuckle. “I can wash you, if it helps.”

Her brows raise skyward as she stares up at him. 

“I’ve seen you naked already,” he points out. “And you’ve seen me naked. And I’ve _technically_ bathed you before too.”

“You’re going to have to hold me up the entire time,” she threatens. “Because I think if I try to stand right now, I’ll embarrass myself.”

Five’s laughter is boisterous, not holding a single note of restraint. It feels more intimate than everything they’d done just now. “I’d be honored,” he tells her, and she realizes why. 

It feels like he’s talking to his wife, and like they’re not faking anything here at all.

* * *

_Fourteen Weeks Before_

The sniper’s familiarity doesn’t feel as welcome now though he wasn’t sure if it ever had been. His hand shakes as he walks with his wife to a rooftop, where he was to shoot a woman in the back of the head from. 

“Why are you nervous?” Vanya asks him, touching his back. He nearly flinches. 

“Didn’t you see the resemblance?”

“I mean…” She sighs. “Yeah, I suppose if the situation were reversed, I wouldn’t want to, either.”

“You’ve never wanted to kill at all.”

“That’s not true,” she protests. “When I think of anybody hurting our family, I have no problem with the thought of killing at all.”

Five can’t really argue with her, considering how determined she looked every time he tried to train her, imagining that that determination came from the urge to protect their family. He appreciates her line of thinking, but he’d never want to see her step into the line of fire for him. “I know that she’s _not_ you, but I still struggle to kill someone that _looks_ like you. Especially because I know that that woman down there has done nothing wrong.”

“Do you _have_ to kill her?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Couldn’t you just _lie?”_ Vanya asks. “How would they know that you haven’t completed the mission?”

“I mean, they could figure it out pretty easily.”

“Right, but…” She wraps her arm around the gun, and Five’s body stiffens, worried she’ll somehow hurt herself even though he’s trained her how to use them. “Would they even know that there was something _to_ figure out?”

He frowns. “Are you suggesting that we say we complete the mission and just… don’t?”

“We’ve only got a little time left before we take down the entire organization and get back to our original timeline.” She pulls the gun fully from his hand. “I’m _suggesting_ that you have one last person to remember hurting. Because I imagine that you’ve remembered every last one, and that you don’t _want_ to add anybody to the list.”

He does remember every single person he’s killed, and, with every person he kills, he finds himself hoping that it will be the last one. Of _course_ he would kill for his family, but he wishes that he’d never _have_ to hurt anybody to protect his family, that the universe would finally give him a break. He’d held the world on his shoulders since he was thirteen years old, and he had long since grown tired of it.

She fires a bullet, and he realizes she’s just knocked down a news-stand. That somebody near the business the news-stand was placed would probably have some questions but ultimately nobody would be harmed. 

“Let’s go,” she tells him, and they use the briefcase to take themselves back to HQ.

* * *

_Thirteen Weeks Before_

She traces her fingers over his back, finding herself hoping that he’ll have a change of heart and that he’ll decide to not divorce her after this. Her husband is sleeping, mouth slightly parted, not having changed at all from when they were kids. Vanya watches the ease of his body as he rests, a little in awe of how soundly he sleeps, remembering how he’d always had nightmares in the few times she’d seen him sleeping in the time after he’d gotten them all back from Dallas. 

“I don’t want to leave you,” she tells him, kissing his shoulder. “Sometimes, I don’t think I’m going to manage without my best friend by my side.”

His expression doesn’t change at all, and she can tell from his steady heartbeat that he really is sleeping. She holds onto the sound of his heartbeat, feeling her powers begin to strengthen with having something in focus. It reminds her of a metronome, offering balance and guidance that she doesn’t necessarily _need_ but fills her with a sense of ease, regardless. 

Five is clearly having no nightmares now, and she can pretty well guess what he’s dreaming of, feeling a blush reach her cheeks at the realization. Her head presses more fully to his shoulder, and she grabs his arm. 

“I’m really lucky to have you,” she continues, drawing circles against his skin. “My _husband.”_

It is probably a good thing that he’s not awake because he would tease her with how happy the word made her, how just saying it made a smile and sense of lightness reach her. She doesn’t think that he would be able to resist the urge to tease her, given the fact that they are just trying to manage until they can finally go back home. 

But, then, she knew that they could have already _gone_ back home. 

So, why is _he_ still here if he clearly knows that too?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!! Also, please note that if you’re frustrated that I had to stop writing at multiple times today because I was like, _“why are you both acting so dumb?”_ (And, yes, I know that they are acting dumb because I made them, but... that’s on them. 😤)


End file.
